Our great working relationship with top local wedding venue, Clearwell Castle saw Sheryl being invited to bring the gift of memories to a very deserving Monmouthshire family.

Ellie was 4 and had been very poorly. We’re talking through the mill here. Every parents nightmare, including mine. Ellie had a dream – a magical wish – to become a REAL princess for the day.

Through the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and with the help of the fabulous team at the castle, Ellie’s dream became a reality on a sunny August day in 2012.

Clearwell Castle staff asked us to donate our time to document the family’s very special day and gift a disk of images to Ellie’s family as a lasting memory of her princess experience. We were only to glad to help and to contribute our time and talent for such a special request.

The collage below is a small selection of the shots I made on the day. I shot everything in natural light so that the photography did not distract Ellie and her younger sister and remained unobtrusive throughout the day. Ellie and family had a superb day, with all the stops pulled out. The day started with hair and make-up in the bridal suite and Ellie looked right at home in her personalized embroidered dressing gown! She walked the grounds in her gown and robe and fed the resident ducks at the lake, had a horse and carriage ride through the village, released doves, played croquet and had hi-tea in style under the care of her own personal butler for the day, Darren!

I was sure to shoot some lovely group portraits for the family too. As Ellie left in her limo and headed for home, We collected our kit and made our way back to the studio after a long, rewarding and touching day to edit the hundreds of images taken. Soon we forwarded a disk of images to Make-A-Wish for forwarding onto Ellie’s family.

What happened next was completely unexpected! Make-A-Wish LOVED ellie’s photo’s so much that they asked for permission from us to use their favourite image on their UK web and facebook pages. Fame indeed! Made even more significant by the volume of professional images they see every year of their ‘Wish children’.

But there’s more .. In December 2012 my images of Ellie were in the spotlight again! This time in national chat magazine ‘BEST’ … Of course I bought a few copies for my portfolio!

Then it got CRAZY! …… We received word that national brand Fairy were seeking permission to add Sheryl’s image of Ellie to the front of their Make-A-Wish bottle label over the Christmas period 2013. For every bottle sold nationwide, Fairy would donate a contribution directly to the foundation! Usually Fairy choose their favourite wish child and re-photograph them especially for the label project – BUT – for 2013 (their 10th year of supporting Make-A-Wish) they chose Sheryl’s image, and Sheryl, backed by her fabulous team at the studio was only too pleased to release the image, without a commercial fee.

To celebrate, Sheryl and her assistant Nikki decided Sheryl should have a photo-shoot of her own to mark this once in a lifetime accomplishment .. and here are the results. We think they sum up the feel good factor at the studio!

We hope Ellie’s family are enjoying the special artwork of their brave little girl and it was my absolute pleasure to have been able to help. All of us at the studio in Tintern wish you all every happy blessing for Ellie’s recovery. We are certain that more wonderful things will continue to happen for Ellie as she goes from strength to strength. A beautiful little girl, lovely family and fond memories of a lovely day.

It’s true what they say – Do a good turn and it will come back three-fold.

WOW! I have met some lovely people this month and some very cute babies – all of whom were absolutely fabulous to photograph. I love my job! There are many more images form many more sessions and I will be blogging them in between shoots and viewings as best I can for you all to see!

All of these images are shot with natural light and use natural tones and textures to make really scrummy artwork to treasure.

Baby sessions are done at your little ones pace with plenty of time to feed, cuddle and for us to have a cup of tea and a natter.

I’m proud to be the studio in our local area that is associated with Emma’s Diary and to be creating pictures that are completely different :)

Join the chat on my facebook page to see what proud parents are saying about their pictures :)

Chloe can only be described as a bit of a ‘TomBoy’ which made her book photo shoot even more special because she brought with her a scooter that emits sparks when it is slowed with the brake! The graffiti backdrop to this image is just amazing and sets the scene for a very urban portrait full of colour and movement.

We had an overcast and drizzly day which meant I got wet rolling around on the floor of the tunnel (part of the O/S Welsh coastal walk). We used two artifical lighting sources to capture this shot which was almost in complete darkness due to the weather and time of year.

Congratulations to Nikki Bowen, My book project assistant for making her debut on this shoot!